UAV

as far as I am aware there is no licensing of drones for commercial use..can you show us a link to how to obtain said license or any government web page showing how to obtain one

> Last month I was talking to another surveyor near Houston, Texas. He had been to south Texas doing updates
> at the local prison with his FAA licensed drone. The Department of Justice helped him expedite his license.
> I would recommend getting a license in cooperation with your county sheriff.
>
> The surveyor does topos, as-builts, generates elevation clouds, and does spot checks for the local
> county assessor.
>
> Land surveyors in England, Canada, and Mexico are using this technology big-time!!!
>
> He did a topo (something like the 1600 acres below) in two days including a computer generated map.
>
> He made the client wait two weeks just to more sure it did not look like easy money.

This appears to be some pathetic attempt to promote this technology.
This should be marked as spam.

Ralph

Not quite true about the use in England. The technique is starting to appear (perhaps less than 0.1 percent of all suitable jobs).

Restrictions are quite significant with regards to heights, extent of work area and requirements for flying licence.

It will become more common, but not for quite a long while.

I agree - this sure reads like spam to me too.

There are at least five surveying companies in England using drones.

I am not in the drone business; I do not get any benefit from the drone business.

From my research, commercial drone use in the US is rare. Maybe the surveyor near
Houston is not using the drone legally by accepting commercial projects.

You could build a drone and use it for non-commercial use.
No flight plan can be used, no waypoint use is allowed, and you have to stay under 400 feet altitude.

Canadians or Mexican dealers cannot sell drones into the United States.

You can consider the last post an advertisement or spam. I do not believe everything
that I see on the Internet.

Have a nice day!!

There was an article in POB magazine called "GIS Unmanned". Check it out.

I saw a drone at the TNRIS convention in Austin. A vendor had a small drone

in his booth. I did not ask any questions or discover the capabilities of his drone.

His company was called Waypoint Mapping near Austin.

Yes, about 5 companies is probably correct: a very small percentage of the market here. UK regulations are contained within the Civil Aviation Authority publication CAP393, section 166.

Thank you. Have a nice weekend!!!

> There are at least five surveying companies in England using drones.
>
> I am not in the drone business; I do not get any benefit from the drone business.
>
> From my research, commercial drone use in the US is rare. Maybe the surveyor near
> Houston is not using the drone legally by accepting commercial projects.
>
> You could build a drone and use it for non-commercial use.
> No flight plan can be used, no waypoint use is allowed, and you have to stay under 400 feet altitude.
>
> Canadians or Mexican dealers cannot sell drones into the United States.
>
> You can consider the last post an advertisement or spam. I do not believe everything
> that I see on the Internet.
>
> Have a nice day

Let's see... you register for the forum today and proceed to sing the praises of Drones, right off the bat.

Why would come up with such a Bullsheet post and assume that readers here are not going to see right through it?

Why are you so interested in Surveyors getting into drones?

"Last month I was talking to another surveyor near Houston, Texas. He had been to south Texas doing updates
at the local prison with his FAA licensed drone. The Department of Justice helped him expedite his license.
I would recommend getting a license in cooperation with your county sheriff. "

Are people that gullible?

?---- Is watching... :whistle:

I'm waiting to see what else this guy says before I mark it as spam and block him. Usually the spammers will only come and type one thing, then they split, never to be seen again. This poster came back, so I am inclined to believe it is an actual human.

We shall see... o.O

> The surveyor does topos, as-builts, generates elevation clouds, and does spot checks
I have buttonholed a couple of photogrammetrists regarding this technology. Both agreed that in the future this sort of work could be common in the ordinary survey office. Both believed that it would never match the precision of photogrammetry as we now know it. But perhaps that was whistling in the dark. For now FAA regs make it illegal in the USA.

You have to get permission from the military to do commercial projects
even after you have the FAA license.

I remember going to Sunnyvale to see the Trimble Pathfinder right after its introduction.
You could walk five feet and the coordinates would change two or three hundred feet.

Then came the idea of differentials. Things got real close. I remember the surveying
equipment dealer in Columbus, Ohio writing a article in POB using the Magellan receivers.
They were getting cm accuracies. They got a call from Magellan's headquarters in
California saying their equipment cannot do that.

Corpus Christi State University is using a licensed drone. Their surveying students
say it is pretty accurate.

If you put photogrammetry technology in the hands of several innovative surveyors,
you will naturally get a plethora of new technology developed. I have great confidence
as did Ben Buckner in the ability of land surveyors to adapt technology to produce
great results!! Just look at the explosion of surveying programs after the HP41C was
introduced.

RE: County Sheriffs.

A friend of mine and I have been working on drone application in context of use for search and rescue through our local sheriff's department. He has a 40 year background in telemetry and RC planes, and with my background in robotics have found some common ground as far as matching up topography with existing quads via existing recognition software.

It has really opened my eyes as far as who has ultimate authority within a county as far as jurisdiction.